Thursday, May 28, 2009

Another Step Closer

Today I received the following:

Please find in the enclosure the allowance to get personally acquainted with a child for TUTTLE family.

In accordance with the article 47 of the regulations No.111 of the Cabinet of Ministers of 11th of March, 2003 “The Procedure of Adoption” the Ministry for Children, Family and Integration Affairs issues a warrant to the adopters – citizens of the United States of America Kevin Scott TUTTLE, and Cindy Denise TUTTLE,  by presenting their documents of personal identification, to get personally acquainted with adoptable child ALEKSEJS JURÄŒENKO.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! God is amazing!

Now please pray with us as we need to raise 10k for this next phase in our journey. For those who have prayed and given already…THANK YOU! For those who would like to help be a part of this journey, please contact either Cindy or myself directly.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Pieces of the Journey…Part 1

On February 23rd, 2009, I posted what was the start of our journey toward adoption…at least I posted and shared publicly for the first time. “This is Hope…continued” was the first blog post introducing Aleks. A few days later on February 27th, 2009 I posted “Updates”, which made it more clear…we are walking a journey toward adopting Aleks.

Okay…I have been asked over and over to share more of the story of how Alex has come into our life. Here is part 1…

After Cindy had Rachel 11 1/2 years ago we talked about adoption on an off a number of times. Over the last few years that desire to adopt has grown…but we never really thought the other one was serious. During 2008, that desire for a son grew to the point I could not deny it any longer. At the beginning of October, when I was getting ready to leave for a Men’s Retreat, I could no longer hold it in. That night before I left, I dumped all that had been building within me on Cindy. (Yes, I laugh about this too…now that I think back on it.) I left for Frontier Ranch, to spend four days with my best friend, my brother-in-law and a bunch of other men who were seeking after God’s heart. While in the mountains I was unplugging from everyday life and seeking God’s will, and part of that was asking about this strong desire for a son. Where was it coming from and what was I to do with it? I returned from that retreat with no more answers than when I left. Yes, I was a bit frustrated and confused.

During this time we had been praying for a young boy Erick, in Guatemala. At 13, he doesn’t know how long he has yet to live. He has been battling sclerosis of the liver for a number of years. He had been examined a number of times by doctors who simply said that Erick needs a liver transplant….but he is not eligible for a transplant. How can you tell a young boy and his parents you can be healed…but your not eligible? In essence…sorry, your going to die because your poor! That’s just unacceptable and tore my heart out. We began to pray more diligently but also we began to work to find a solution. The doctors said Erick’s only hope was to be adopted and taken to a country where he could get the medical treatment he needed. Was this true? Could adoption save Erick? We began to ask more questions and pursue answers. Through this process, God was opening our hearts to adopting. We accepted the fact that if we adopted Erick we would spend the next number of years caring for Erick and working toward providing him a better life. We then found that Erick’s parents said they would give him up for adoption if we would be the family to adopt him…and Erick agreed to this as well. WOW! Empowered with this responsibility and focus, we moved forward with trying to use all of the contacts we knew to get Erick to the states. Our core goal was and is….Erick’s complete healing. If this required or allowed us the privilege of adopting him…great! As we moved forward it seemed we hit wall after wall. The US government is steadfast that all adoptions from Guatemala are closed due to the Hague treaty. It was also made very clear to us that adoption IS NOT for those children who have families…it is for those who don’t have families. What were we to do? We have a young boy who needs us and a family who was counting on us. I can’t imagine the pain Erick’s parents must have felt as they discussed and made the decision to give him up for adoption…to give him up so that he can live. It almost sounds like a story from Bible…

(stay tuned for more…)

Pieces of the Journey…Part 2

On February 23rd, 2009, I posted what was the start of our journey toward adoption…at least I posted and shared publicly for the first time. “This is Hope…continued” was the first blog post introducing Aleks. A few days later on February 27th, 2009 I posted “Updates”, which made it more clear…we are walking a journey toward adopting Aleks.

Okay…I have been asked over and over to share more of the story of how Alex has come into our life. Here is part 2…

As things continued with Erick, doors continued to open, but I now realize that they were opening…to help open our hearts. But our direction started to change as the walls began to grow in November and December of 2008. This left us frustrated and asking why. It seemed like the more our hearts longed to help Erick the more challenges came along the way. Did you catch that? We longed to “Help” Erick…? It was clear that Erick had a mom and dad…with plenty of siblings as well. By mid December of 2008 Cindy turned to me and said, we are supposed to be and advocate for Erick…not adopt him. Wow…that was true, but through everything God had shown us His heart for us to adopt…and had led us to a place of openness to do that.

Between Christmas and new years of 2008 I heard God calling me into an area that once again, I had never been. (No…it wasn’t an audible voice or text message…but it was clear in my heart) Fasting? You never hear about Fasting in the modern day church, how was I supposed to know what that was all about? I spent a few days studying all I could find then set out on that journey with God. It was hard, and extremely rewarding. During that time I took four things to God and watched as God moved in three of those. The fourth was simply asking God what he wanted us to do about this incredibly strong desire for a son…conceive, adopt or just forget about it? During this time of focus I became extremely frustrated at what I interpreted as silence from God. It came to a point that Wednesday January 21st, I just unloaded my thoughts and feelings on God. At the end of that I conceded that His silence must be just telling me that we needed to focus on the two incredible girls we have…and just be content. That night I shared my heart with Cindy, and we were content.

The next morning, Thursday January 22nd, 2009, I got up and was heading to Orlando to visit a customer. As I was getting my things together to leave, I realized that I had left my computer open and on all night. As I sat down to log off and shut my computer down…there was one friend of mine on Facebook…Chris Crutchley. As I sat down, Chris updated his status…”Anyone interested in adoption?”. Wow! I called Cindy downstairs and showed her…I had to see if God was using Chris to speak to us. As I answered Chris we began to chat and he shared with me about Aleks. We knew that Chris and Jamie had hosted Aleks over the holidays…but we had never met him. Chatting just didn’t work so I called Chris as I drove to Florida. As we shared our story and hearts with each other…we realized that God had brought our paths together for just this…Aleksejs Jurcenko. I called Cindy and shared the story of what was happening. We took the weekend to pray and ask God if this was what He had been preparing us for. Our Father said Yes and gave us peace. It was with great excitement that we stepped out in faith on Monday January 26th to start gathering the paperwork we would need to host and adopt Aleks.

Greater things are yet to come, greater things are still to be done here.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Another Step Closer…

USCIS Approval Notice

Here it is! The document we have been waiting for (the best one yet…but better ones yet to come!)

Yesterday we received our Approval Notice from the US Citizenship & Immigration Service. Quite simply this means that the US government says we are “Suitable” to adopt a child…and this is what the Latvian government wants to see. Our dossier is already over there…but you know that. The translation should be complete and is simply waiting on this approval document. Within two hours from receiving this in the mail, we had it notarized, apostilled and in an overnight envelope. It was then placed in the hands of our good friend Matt…the best “Brown” driver in America.

Matt with CIS approval for LatviaTomorrow our papers will be on a plane to Latvia where they will be delivered to the Latvian adoption attorney on Monday. In a few weeks we should receive an e-mail from the Latvian government  stating that we have been approved to adopt Aleks if we wish to. We will send an approval back immediately and then wait for a follow up communication inviting us to come to Latvia to meet Aleks in person. At that time we will travel to Latvia and present our petition for adoption to the Latvian court and spend the next two weeks getting to know Aleks.

Exciting…YES! A little scary…yes, some of that too. It is all moving so much quicker that we could have ever dreamed of…but yet, God knew this all along, and had it planned. (Yes, we actually do believe that) We still have some obstacles ahead of us, but nothing compared to how far we have come in the last three months! We still need to prepare Aleks room with furniture, clothes and boy stuff. Yes, we also need to paint that room because neither he, nor I would feel comfortable with the pink walls that are in his room. We also have a large financial piece of the adoption ahead. We still have about 2/3 yet to raise.

Here are some specific prayer requests we ask you to pray with us about:
~ That God would continue to prepare our hearts for Aleks.
~ That God would prepare Aleks' heart for the changes ahead. That he would learn to trust us and accept that our love is unconditional.
~ For the rest of the finances needed for the adoption.
~ For the finances to finish getting the things we need to prepare our home for Aleks.


Once again words cannot express our appreciation for your continued support and prayers. For those of you who have given financially, again, Thank You!
If you would like to know more about our journey or to help us financially, please visit our blogs.

Thank you from our entire family!
Kevin, Cindy, Kristen, Rachel...and Aleks!

Monday, May 4, 2009

Perspective…

This evening I decided to spend some quiet time just sitting on the front porch. It’s in the mid 60’s, the rain has stopped, the sun is beginning to break through the clouds and blue sky is appearing. The rhododendron is in full crimson bloom. The azaleas are hot pink and snow white, The grass and trees are that intense green that only happens after the rain. Birds are singing and the deer are coming through the woods only a few yards from the swing I am sitting in. It’s peaceful, quiet and beautiful.(except for the mosquito's after days of rain)

How a day can change things. Today I received the following e-mail:

Good morning,

The system we use to approve cases, generate approvals, and send the approvals to the Department of State was down all of last week.  It is up and running again today.  I approved your case first thing this morning.  You will receive your notice in the mail shortly.  Have a great day.

With that I have just two things to say….Thank You and stay tuned, more to follow soon!

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Random Thoughts

Still no paperwork from Immigration. We hope to receive the approval from the USCIS soon. There are three families heading over to Latvia in the next week and it would be great to send the approval over with one of them. Maybe tomorrow…

Unplugging. That is one of the most uncomfortable and difficult things to do in our modern “busy” age. The harder we run the faster life chases us. We (me) get so caught up in keeping up with everything around us (me again) that we begin to neglect the really important things…our family and our own personal growth. It takes work to keep both in tact and on the calendar. Unplugging from everything and removing the distractions…one of the biggest challenges, yet so worth it!

And wow…have you ever really spent time considering just what Christ did for us? This morning in our student ministry, Dustin Dozier put some clips from The Passion of the Christ, to use as the background for the song Amazing Grace our Chains are Gone. That along with Chris Huff leading worship, was Strong! Kudos's to both. Today was an amazing day and thought the powers of darkness tried to jack things up…The Light had the victory. The study in students called SHIFT is making us all take a step back and shift our perspective. A shift that is well needed.